pidapalooza 2016 talk.pdf

Research protocols represent the complex 4-dimensional processes that are the heart of experimental science. Protocols are the substrate for critical evaluation of scientific data, yet their current representation in the digital world is in desperate need of modernization. Many different groups have recognized this and various new digital representations for protocols are starting to emerge. This panel will focus on challenges that a system for identifying scientific protocols must address. Some of the issues include the conflation of PID metadata with data that should be in the artifact (related to citation vs accession), and achieving representation agnostic identification. In addition, some of the important questions for discussion include: when do we issue a new protocol identifier? Who inputs metadata? Who can update metadata? And, why not DOIs?